The American emperor has no clothes. The bullying and bluster cannot disguise the reality that the US-led Western order is a failing empire whose only claim to power is criminal war and empty threats.

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Sixteen years after its creation, the international forum known as the BRICS held its annual summit in Brazil this week. Tellingly, the view from Washington was one of alarm despite the bravado.

With its commitment to multilateral partnership in trade and finance, the organization is widely welcomed around the world as an exciting prospect for international development, and with that, a more peaceful and secure planet.

Who could have a problem with that?

US President Donald Trump reacted aggressively as the BRICS convened in Rio De Janeiro. He threatened to slap trade tariffs on member nations and other countries planning to join the BRICS. In a barrage of angry messages and statements, Trump accused the multilateral forum of being “anti-American” and attacking the global status of the US dollar as the primary reserve currency.

This wasn’t the first time Trump had exploded with ire against BRICS. Last November, as president-elect, he threatened to impose 100 per cent tariffs on its members.

This week, Trump could not contain his anger. He warned Brazil that he was going to hit the South American nation with 50 per cent trade levies.  The US president claimed that his threatened action was partly in support of former Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing prosecution for allegedly trying to overturn the 2022 election won by Lula da Silva.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, the sound and fury emanating from the White House signifies a lot.

As former Trump aide Steve Bannon candidly admitted: “You can tell the president is pissed every time he looks at the BRICS de-dollarization effort.”

Since its founding in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with South Africa joining the following year, the trade bloc has grown to 10 members, including Iran, Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. Several other nations have memberships pending, such as Algeria, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, among others. BRICS represents about a third of global economic output and is growing.

Its evolution is gradual and not so much a process of sudden breakthrough. A New Development Bank, founded in 2015, has yet to reach its full potential. A common BRICS international currency still seems a long way off.

However, each year brings new members and a coalescing of practical mechanisms to bolster multilateral trade and investment.

With its emphasis on sovereign partnership between the emerging nations of the Global South, there is no doubt that the BRICS is providing an alternative to the Western-dominated G7 forum and financial institutions like the World Bank.

The BRICS nations aspire to fulfill the vision of a multipolar, genuinely democratic world. That is why it is viewed by the United States and its Western partners as an existential threat. The contradiction betrays the hypocrisy and duplicity of self-declared Western democracy.

The Western-led order, dominated by the US, is an arrangement for global hegemony that benefits a minority of nations. It’s a Neo-colonialist construct that perpetuates exploitation and privilege over genuine international development. That construct is the source of inequality, poverty, and seemingly never-ending wars and militarism.

A key element for continuing US-led hegemony is the dominance of the dollar. But that dominance is based on abuse of power. It is an arbitrary, politically imposed privilege that is no longer viable or justifiable.

The irony is that Trump and Western imperial arrogance are the cause of the dollar’s demise.

The BRICS offer a vision of nations trading freely in an ethos of partnership and cooperation. A vital mechanism is to settle trade with the currencies of the partner nations. The imposed reliance on the US dollar is a fetter on development that only benefits Washington.

Trump’s fears about BRICS are shared by the US establishment and its vassals among the European elites. If the dollar were to be replaced, then a key pillar of US hegemony would collapse. The dollar-affiliated euro currency would also crash.

It is every nation’s right to determine the mechanism for trade and finance. This is not “anti-American” per se. It is the democratic right of all nations as stipulated by the Charter of the United Nations.

Trump’s fury towards the BRICS for “attacking the dollar” betrays the arrogance of a hegemonic empire.

Nonetheless, the anxiety in Washington is well-founded. The emergence of BRICS and other multipolar organizations with an emphasis on Global South solidarity is a mortal threat to imperialist privilege.

Trump’s illegal aggression against Iran, the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, and the US military build-up in Asia-Pacific against China are all part of the wider geopolitical conflict to prop up US hegemony.

BRICS nations this week condemned US aggression against Iran and the illegal unilateral imposition of trade tariffs and sanctions.

The American emperor has no clothes. The bullying and bluster cannot disguise the reality that the US-led Western order is a failing empire whose only claim to power is criminal war and empty threats. It’s an ugly sight. But fortunately, one that will shrivel and expire like so many other past empires. The BRICS herald a brighter future for humanity.